1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an addressee recognizing apparatus that recognizes the addressee of matter to be delivered.
2. Description of the Related Art
When recognizing the addressee of matter to be delivered (a letter or the like), a conventional addressee recognizing apparatus may mistake information in a sender area for an addressee because the information in the sender area may match information in an address database. Thus, it is desirable to present a technique for preventing such erroneous recognition.
For example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 10-180192 (paragraph 0037 and the like) (referred to as Document 1 below) discloses a technique in which information on the address of a sender and on the coordinate position of the address area is pre-stored in a table and in which the system determines whether the information in the table matches the result of recognition of the address of the addressee of the postal matter and the position on the postal matter where the address is described so that if the information matches the result of the recognition, this position is considered to be a sender area.
Further, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 11-235554 (paragraph 0047 and the like) (referred to as Document 2 below) discloses a technique in which if an address candidate is present both inside and outside a cellophane window (or seal), the candidate present outside the cellophane window is considered to be the address of the sender.
However, with the determination based simply on information on the coordinate position of the sender area as disclosed in Document 1, it is difficult to improve the accuracy with which the sender area is recognized. It is thus difficult to achieve accurate address recognition.
On the other hand, postal matter without a cellophane window or the like cannot be flexibly dealt with by the method of utilizing a cellophane window or the like as disclosed in Document 2. This makes it difficult to achieve accurate address recognition.
Under the circumstances, it is desired to provide an addressee recognizing apparatus which can effectively prevent the sender area from being erroneously recognized as an addressee, thus accomplishing accurate address recognition.